Re-urbanizing the suburbs? The role of theatre and the arts

Keywords: placemaking, quarter regeneration, resilience, social change , creative milieu.

di Roncalli Elisabetta

Who is speaking?

“Could some of the towns and cities that have been suburbanized develop once again more of the characteristics

of the classic city? What would be the role of the theatre and the arts in such a

development?”

Sir Peter Hall, theatre director

Sir Peter Hall, urbanist

Source: City, Vol 10, N° 3, 2006

…. living a social changefrom a collective consumption of culture towards individual consumption of culture

“Live sport, live concerts, live theatre is declining. The centre of the city is becoming less than necessary.”

We can imagine all together. And because it’s an act of

imagination, it’s socially binding.

Or we can stay at home, we can sit in our gardens and watch and listen.

Source: City, Vol 10, N° 3, 2006

The collapse of social capital

Source: City, Vol 10, N° 3, 2006

“People increasingly have no kind of civic involvement together

at all. They’ve become atoms,

individual atoms.”

“It is toward rematerialization and perhaps partial deceleration, that we need to move” cultural regeneration

Teatro la ScalaGlobe Theatre

Rose theatre

Royal Opera HouseL’opera di Parigi

Teatro Bolshoi di Mosca

“It is part of the collective anxiety of cities now to create some image of them- selves”

Case history:

The Rose Theatre, Kingston upon Thames

Object of discussion: exploring the wider implications of building a new theatre in Kingston upon Thames (2008).

Observations:

What had become largely a suburb seems to be re-emerging!!

“Kingston is not comparable in scale to either London or San Francisco. But the possibilities for productive face-to-face social interaction

are so much greater here. There is a sense of cultural and intellectual

ferment and of a movement towards ‘new and unknown social

arrangements“

Source: City, Vol 10, N° 3, 2006

Promoting the creative milieu

Source: Peter Hall, 1998

Creativity and planning

“Is creativity a spontaneous reaction to circumstances or it has to be planned?”

Creative spark(spontaneous,

bottom up)

Pre-conditions(planned, top-down)

Creativity (and innovation)

Source: City, Vol 10, N° 3, 2006

“You can create some pre- conditions, but whatever is going to make it work depends uniquely on some creative spark, which must always be, I suppose, a matter of chance”

Creativity and planning

Source: The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators, Landry C., 2008

“A creative milieu is a place that contains the necessary preconditions in terms of “hard” and “soft” infrastructure

to generate a flow of ideas and inventions”.

(…….) A creative milieu is a place where ‘face-to-face interaction [among a critical mass of entrepreneurs,

intellectuals, social activists, artists, administrators, power brokers or students] creates new ideas, artefacts, products, services and institutions and, as a consequence, contributes

to economic success.”(Landry, 2000)

“Infrastructure alone is not enough to engender creativity”

Richard Florida

“Does it matter if we do not have wonderful buildings?”

“We have had this de-industrialization leaving huge areas of derelict space. To some extent, this is to the good, because ware- houses are just the spaces where you can begin”.

Re-useRe(covery)Re-conceptualize

Source: City, Vol 10, N° 3, 2006

Creativity and planningTheatre: hard or/soft infrastructure?

Conclusion

Why is the theatre strategic for local development?

1. Towards a polycentric city (the suburb as a place where to live, work and consume culture- città diffusa).

2. Theatre as a tool for promoting a local community (from “Bowling alone” to Sharing) ----- beneficiaris = locals

3. Theatre as a driver for tourism development --- beneficiaris = tourists.

4. Theatre as a creative hub: promoting a strong town–gown relationship.

Did it work? A few years later…

25 November 2010

Source: TimeandLeisure, 2010